


What The Hell Is Wrong With Dr. McCoy Now?!

by StellarLibraryLady



Series: Star Trek Incandescent Hearts [43]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Apologies, Bickering, Company For Each Other, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt, Hurt, Injured Spock, M/M, Pining Spock (Star Trek), Plomeek Soup, Pre-Relationship, Ranting McCoy, friends to something more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-09-29 07:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17198867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarLibraryLady/pseuds/StellarLibraryLady
Summary: Kirk warns McCoy that he shouldn't be so hard on Spock and that someday he might regret some of the things he's said.  McCoy didn't believe Kirk, though, until Spock is severely injured.





	What The Hell Is Wrong With Dr. McCoy Now?!

Jim Kirk had lost count of the times that he’d seen the look of triumph in the eyes of one of his friends and the frustration barely contained in the eyes of the other. Except this time, it was McCoy looking triumphant and Spock admitting defeated. But Kirk saw even more than that from Spock. There was hurt and pain and disappointment in his dark eyes. McCoy had caused Spock genuine anguish. Kirk was almost certain of it, even if Spock tried to cover his bruised emotions with a blank look. Like an injured animal when it doesn’t want to show any sign of weakness, Kirk thought.

Kirk could have also sworn that Spock was trying to get McCoy's attention when the preoccupied doctor had snapped something short and hateful at Spock. The caustic retort had cooled the area around the threesome and had apparently deflated Spock completely. What was worse was that McCoy didn't seem to notice what he had done to Spock.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me,” Spock said woodenly as he pulled himself to his feet, "I must be on my way." He methodically gathered the remnants of his lunch and left the mess hall without another word. To any casual observer, it was as if he had never been there at all.

Kirk noted the whole silent exit, but McCoy had turned his attention back to his food now that he had won the skirmish with Spock.

Kirk leaned forward so only McCoy could hear. “Proud of yourself?”

McCoy looked up and frowned. “Eh?”

“That performance hit a low mark, even for you.”

“I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about! I’ve got a lot of things on my mind! I don’t have time for mysteries! If you've got something to say, spit it out!”

"What you just did to Spock. That was nasty to watch."

"He's tough," McCoy growled as he tried to interest himself in his food again. "He shouldn't start something, if he doesn't want me to stand up to him."

"That wasn't a debate. It was a debacle."

McCoy felt a little sheepish and did not comment.

“What has been your problem lately, Bones? You’ve been awfully snappish.”

McCoy wiped a hand over his face. “Sorry. I’ve got all sorts of things on my mind. There’s been a serious breakout of a new strain of influenza in the American school systems, and I'm worried about Joanna. It's a very virulent strain."

"That's understandable that you would worry about your daughter's safety, but you have to have faith in the medical people back home."

"I know. I'm also hoping this new flu won’t head this way with crewmen returning from shore leave.”

Kirk blinked. “That’s borrowing trouble, isn’t it? You might as well worry about dirty water from the Ganges River invading our hydration system. After all, we might have crewmen visiting India.”

“Anything’s possible,” McCoy grumbled, knowing when he was being gently mocked for unnecessary fears.

“But not probable. Bones, this isn’t like you. You're overextending yourself. And it’s coming out in your treatment of Spock.”

“Sorry. Guess I should blow off steam some other way, huh?” McCoy offered, hoping that meekness would help make up for some of his recent gruffness.

But Kirk wasn't going to let him off so easily, but he'd try to be fair. Hell, he loved both the guys, too. “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to, you know,” he suggested gently.

“I know, but does it make any difference to him? Why waste my apologies on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.”

“Bones, you know he feels emotions more than he wants to admit. As his friends, we should recognize that fact and help him, not take advantage of him.”

“How come I got to be the bad guy here?! I’m only following rules that he set down! He shouldn’t be taking anything personally! That’s his problem, not mine!”

“I’m just saying that you shouldn't be so hard on Spock. Otherwise, there may come a time when you might regret some of the things you’ve said to him.”

McCoy looked aggravated, but did not try to contradict Kirk anymore. He did become more cordial, though. Now if only Kirk could get McCoy to extend that cordiality to Spock before McCoy regretted his careless actions.

It wasn't the new strain of influenza that brought McCoy up short, though, but a different kind of emergency.

 

Christine Chapel leaned inside McCoy's office door. "Dr. McCoy, Mr. Scott in Engineering just called." Her face looked pale and tense. "There's been an explosion down there. Several crewmen have been injured."

Well, that explained the rocking of the Enterprise a few moments before, McCoy thought.

Chapel continued. "Len, it's Commander Spock. He's been wounded quite severely.  Captain Kirk is headed this way with him and the other casualties."

And that explained Chapel's alarm and why she had acted as though the word 'casualties' was almost an obscenity on her tongue. McCoy knew how she felt. The crew, especially Mr. Spock, were more than patients. They were family.

McCoy frowned as he pushed back from his desk. "Let's get ready for them, Nurse," he snapped.

That seemed to ground her. Her professionalism and efficiency reemerged. "Yes, Doctor," Chapel snapped back.

They didn't have long to wait.

The severely wounded were brought into sickbay amid the chaos of shouting and cries of pain. McCoy saw a grim-faced Kirk practically carrying a bent over Spock toward a biobed. Spock huddled over his left arm which he cradled against his abdomen. He wasn’t watching where he was going and would’ve fallen when he stumbled if it hadn’t been for Kirk’s sturdy arm holding him up. Kirk almost lifted Spock onto the biobed where the Vulcan slumped forward and rocked in pain. Kirk stood back, looking pale and helpless and alarmed.

As he ran toward him, McCoy knew that Spock was critically injured. “Outa my way! Let me see!” he barked as Kirk stumbled aside. "Where are you hurt?!"

Spock stretched out his arm and the great effort of that movement showed on his tense face. 

McCoy grabbed the arm and almost passed out in relief. It was the inside of Spock’s left arm that was mangled and not his abdomen as McCoy had feared. Spock's injuries would not kill him.

But the wound was substantial enough. Green blood was gushing everywhere from veins and arteries. It would’ve been worse if it hadn’t been for the awkward, blood-matted tourniquet knotted above Spock’s elbow. But the flesh was mutilated and shredded. Tendons had to be torn. The bone underneath may even be broken.

Spock shivered as McCoy's hands gently touched his flesh. At this point, even a feather or a light breeze would cause pain to Spock. And McCoy's touch, no matter how gentle and steady, was no feather or light breeze. It hurt Spock, and there was no reason to think otherwise.

McCoy blanched and felt himself go numb as he held onto the arm. He was hurting Spock, although he wanted to do quite the opposite.

“Doctor, it hurts so much--” Spock whispered as he trembled and gritted his teeth.

“I know, damn it! I’m a doctor!” McCoy grabbed the arm harder as he brought himself out of his stupor. Spock rarely admitted pain. It must be a terrible injury for him to even suggest how badly it was bothering him.

Spock started to pull his aching arm back from McCoy’s rough treatment.

“Sit still, damn it, and let me treat you!”

“Bones,” Kirk said gently. “I think you’re hurting him.”

“Everybody wants to be a doctor today!” he muttered, but relaxed his rough hold.

McCoy glanced at the grim line of Spock’s set lips and saw the sweat that had popped out on Spock's forehead in just the last few moments. And it all suddenly got to him. He couldn’t be neutral. This injured man was Spock. Spock! His friend! His buddy! And maybe even something more, he suddenly realized. His hands began to shake.

McCoy dropped the arm and turned away.

“Bones?”

McCoy could hear the question in Kirk’s voice.

“Doctor?” Chapel asked. “Is there a problem?”

McCoy latched onto it. “Yes! Yes, nurse, there is!” he declared as he turned back to his patient. “Clean the debris field so I can properly see the injury that this patient has sustained.”

It was weak, it was flimsy, but McCoy needed a minute, just a minute, damn it, to collect himself.

Kirk, Spock, and Chapel all stared at him. At least he had diverted Spock's attention away from his wounds.

“Clean the debris field, Doctor?” Chapel repeated for clarification.

“That’s what I said, Nurse!” he snapped back. “If you cannot do that simple nursing chore, I will do it myself!”

“Yes, of course, I can do as you requested Doctor,” Chapel said crisply as she began to cleanse Spock’s wounded arm. Spock grimly set his lips as Chapel tried to touch him as gently as she could, but anyone could see that the handling and rubbing was causing great pain to him.

McCoy felt like a heel. Christine Chapel prided herself in her competent abilities as a nurse. He had torn down her personal prestige on an elementary level as well as making Spock suffer unnecessary pain simply so he could settle himself down.

“That’s enough,” he muttered, ashamed.

Chapel was about to object. She hadn’t finished her assignment, but he was the doctor and in charge. “Of course, Doctor,” she mumbled and stepped aside.

McCoy was going to have to apologize to her both personally and professionally, but it had to wait until later. First, he had a patient to heal.

And it didn’t take long. As he finished with the dermal regenerator, he could see that the pain on Spock’s face had eased into tiredness. Spock could barely keep his eyes open. He was spent both emotionally and physically.

“Let this patient sleep now, Nurse,” he mumbled as he turned away. 

“Yes, Doctor.” This was something that Chapel understood and could do: be a nurse.

“Make him comfortable,” McCoy continued as he glanced at his weary patient. Maybe compassion could erase some of his mistakes. “Give him two blankets if he needs them to stay warm. And watch him carefully.”

Chapel smiled. "Yes, Doctor, I will."

McCoy turned toward less-injured patients, and left Spock to Chapel's clucking care. Hopefully, he had appeased himself with both of them by letting Chapel know that he trusted her again and by being humane to their patient.

 

“What in the hell was that all about?” Kirk demanded later in McCoy’s quarters. But before McCoy could answer, Kirk talked through him. “And don’t bother with not not knowing what I’m talking about. But just in case you don’t have a clue in hell, I’m meaning back there in sickbay when you roughed up Spock almost worse than the explosion did.”

McCoy pinched his lips together as he turned aside. He was too tired to argue or to protest. “I don’t know what came over me, Jim. It just got to me, that’s all.” He looked back at Kirk who was watching him carefully. “Suddenly, here was Spock, injured. And I thought that you were bringing a dead man in to me. And when I saw that he was hurt, but not fatally, I nearly passed out with relief. Then I got angry at him for getting hurt. Imagine that! Getting angry ‘cause he got hurt. As if he could help it!” He grimaced. “I guess I reacted. Badly. And not very professionally. I wasn’t being very much of a doctor at that moment.”

“You were being a friend, concerned about a friend who means a lot to you,” Kirk said gently.

McCoy frowned with that possibility. “Let’s not get syrupy about it!”

“Friends are allowed to be shaken by injuries to friends. It just hit you at an odd moment, that’s all. I’m surprised it’s never happened to you before.” Kirk frowned. “Is there some reason why your concern struck you now and not before?”

“I don’t know,” McCoy whined as he turned away. “I’ve asked myself that several times since it happened.”

“And?”

McCoy gave him a hard look. “Beats the hell outa me.”

“Well, I don’t know the answer, either. But in the meantime, I think that you need to make things up to Spock, don’t you? Then maybe you will feel freer to figure out this other problem of yours.”

“Thanks, Jim. I will.” He just wished that Kirk could explain these new feelings that he had for Spock. McCoy didn’t know a whole lot about what was going on, either, except he knew that it had nothing to do with doctoring or with friendship.

 

Spock drew back a little when he saw who was walking into his quarters.

McCoy frowned and stopped in his tracks. “Sorry. Am I disturbing you?”

Spock forced himself to relax. “I am sorry, too. I did not intend to flinch like that. Do come in, Doctor.”

“Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you did flinch when you saw me,” McCoy muttered as he stepped in and the door slid shut behind him.

Then they were suddenly alone, and both noticed it. There had never been an awkwardness between them before, and it made them uncomfortable. Angst and bickering, true; but never this awkwardness.

“No, I wouldn’t blame you at all,” McCoy muttered, thankful for finding a thread of conversation he could resume. “Look, I, uh, well I was a little rough on you in sickbay after you got injured. And I wanted to say that I'm sorry. Yes, sorry. Sorry about that.”

“Thank you for saying that, Doctor. I do appreciate it.” Spock was seated in his easy chair with his arm stretched out on its arm. A book lay on his lap. “I did not know if this was a social visit or a professional one.”

“A little of both, I suppose.” McCoy's eyes narrowed. “You never returned to sickbay for follow-ups on your arm.”

“I do not intend to contradict you, Doctor, but I did return there. Several times. Nurse Chapel examined my arm and said that it looked as if it was improving nicely.”

“Oh, yes, hmm.” Of course he had read Chapel’s report and observations. She could handle that sort of thing as well as he could. It disturbed him, though, that his excuse for his visit was seen through so easily. But he had another excuse, ah, reason, for being in Spock's quarters.

McCoy held out a small container. “I brought you some plomeek soup.”

Spock studied the container with delight on his face. “Plomeek soup? How thoughtful of you, Doctor.”

“Christine Chapel made it for me. For me, ah, to give to you.” He shook the container slightly.

“Please extend my thanks to Nurse Chapel, too, Doctor. Or I shall the next time I see her. She was very nice to have done that for both of us.”

McCoy shrugged. “I don’t intend to eat any of it. It’s for you.”

“I meant that she prepared the ingredients and cooked them for you to give to me.”

“Of course, of course.” They were getting bogged down in conversation as they always did.

Spock suddenly remembered his manners. “How thoughtless of me. Do be seated, Doctor.”

McCoy again shook the container he held. “Your soup--” Then he took out a spoon with his other hand and stepped nearer to Spock.

Spock blanched. “Do you intend to feed me?”

McCoy stopped. “Oh, no, I, ah, that’s not what I meant at all. I was just gonna hand it to you.” He looked hopeful. “Unless you have some trouble with eating?”

“I am right-handed, Doctor. The injury to my left arm does not impede my grip any.”

“Oh.”

Spock noted that McCoy seemed almost disappointed.

“I find that I am exaggerating the extent of my recovery, Doctor. I would appreciate any help which you would extend to me.”

McCoy’s eyes sparkled with interest. “Oh, well, let me help then.” 

McCoy opened the container, then held it while Spock spooned soup into his waiting mouth. At no time did Spock’s left arm move.

Even that got McCoy’s attention, though.

“Is your arm giving you that much trouble? Or do you need therapy?”

“What? Oh, no, no, I do not need to give it any special attention. I was simply resting it while I was taking advantage of your excellent help,” he said diplomatically.

McCoy frowned. “You wouldn’t be trying to be heroic now, would you? If something hurts, you gotta speak up.”

“What hurts is that you are still standing, Doctor. Please, be seated,” he offered with a sweep of his hand to the other chair near him.

“Well, okay, if you’re certain that it’ll be alright,” McCoy muttered as he perched on the indicated chair.

“Doctor, it would please me very much if you kept me company for awhile. I find that I get quite bored with only books and my computer to distract me.”

McCoy studied him. “If it was anybody else saying that, I’d say you were lying. I know how much you love your books and computer. But you cannot lie, therefore you must be telling me the truth.”

“Sometimes even I find that human companionship is the only thing that will satisfy me.”

McCoy grinned. “That’s great to hear! It must mean that some of my ideas are penetrating that thick skull of yours, after all!” A new thought struck him as his eyes glowed. “Why, it must mean that you are listening to me! Will wonders never cease?!”

“There is room for all sorts of miracles in the universe, Doctor,” Spock said demurely. 

Spock would not go to the extent of telling McCoy that he had felt fear and concern in McCoy’s hands that day he had sustained the severe injury to his arm. Some other things, too, Spock wanted to keep to himself, at least for a little while longer. Things like he was desperate for human companionship, especially if McCoy was the human providing it. McCoy might think that was odd, but Spock hoped to convince McCoy that McCoy was also in need of company from a certain half-Vulcan Starfleet Commander with whom he liked to argue. Spock was hoping to show McCoy that there was more they could be doing with their time than arguing, if only they were both willing to try a different approach to their relationship.

"Please tell me about your day, Doctor."

"Really? You want to hear about what went on in sickbay?"

As long as you are telling it, I do, Spock thought.

"Yes, I do. And, please, as many details as you can remember." Spock sat back with a wise look on his face and contentment in his heart. How good it was to know someone as delightful as Leonard McCoy!

Spock was pleased that he had McCoy's attention at long last. And how pleasant that they were chatting amiably together without arguing. Spock just wished he had not had to endure such a horrific injury for McCoy to notice him. But now as he watched an animated McCoy relating his day, Spock decided that it had all been worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing of Star Trek, its characters, and/or its story lines.


End file.
